Editorial: Hits and misses

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Hit: It doesn’t take long for populations to grow and for generations to turn over, so any chance to reconnect to our history is priceless.

That’s why we were so excited to talk with Jo Ellen Hall, whose mother Dorothy Stover Hall was a local celebrity of sorts as a female rancher on her own starting in the late 1920s.

Hall – both of them – were the focus of a documentary by Trudy Duisenberg of Chico, who was introduced to the daughter and found out about the mother. The documentary was released in 2016, but tonight is being aired at 8 p.m. on KIXE Channel 9.

There was some confusion because Channel 9’s programming guide for that time slot didn’t show the Chico documentary. That was just the regularly scheduled programming.

We are lucky to have this distinct link to the past, as well as the knowledge of those who loved the land before us. Thank you Trudy Duisenberg and Jo Ellen Hall.

Miss: We often warn voters to ignore political hit pieces that arrive in the mail the last few days before an election. The last-minute missives are designed to bring up issues that the opponent doesn’t have time to answer. Most people take the late attack ads for what they often are — nonsense.

LaMalfa, known for dirty tricks that walk a thin line between legal and illegal, sent out a mailer of an altered picture of Democrat Audrey Denney, his opponent in the congressional race. Denney said the original picture was of her signing a pledge not to take donations from corporate political action committees. Instead, the photo was altered to make it look like Denney was signing a pledge to support “Nancy Pelosi and the Liberal Democrats that want to continue our tax increases.”

There’s no such thing as a pledge to Nancy Pelosi. Anyone with a brain knows that. That would be LaMalfa’s legal argument if a complaint were filed: We were just joking. It’s satire.

It’s low, particularly for a sitting member of Congress.

Readers, do yourself a favor for the next 10 days and toss your political junk mail into the garbage before reading it. It’s not worth your time.

Hit: There’s not often comic relief in the courtroom, but there was this week, courtesy of always-witty Butte County District Attorney Mike Ramsey.

Ramsey rarely prosecutes cases anymore but decided he should be the lead attorney in the case against former Chico police Sgt. Scott Ruppel. Ruppel was on trial for allegedly assaulting a handcuffed suspect last year.

In opening arguments Tuesday, Ramsey likened the opening arguments to the table of contents in a book. He said the title of Ruppel’s trial should be, “Law Even Protects Jerks,” with a subtitle of “You Can’t Choke Out a Handcuffed, Seatbelted-in Arrestee.”

With quotes like that, we wish Ramsey would prosecute more cases.

Miss: Instead of sending out “creative” political mailers (see above), perhaps Rep. Doug LaMalfa can spend some time asking a federal agency why it takes two years to get a permit to fix a road traveled by hundreds of vehicles every day.

During the January 2017 storms, the same ones that filled Lake Oroville and caused the spillway to crumble, one lane of a two-lane road in Butte Creek Canyon collapsed down a steep hill toward the creek. One lane is still passable, and there’s a portable stoplight to ward off head-on collisions.

It’s on Centerville Road, just above the Honey Run Covered Bridge, in Butte County’s jurisdiction. County supervisors got an update at their meeting this week on the status of the road repairs.

The update: no update.

County Public Works Director Dennis Schmidt said the county is still awaiting approval from the Federal Emergency Management Agency, which is picking up most of the $2 million cost. He doesn’t expect work to get started until spring at the earliest. Maybe LaMalfa can convince the federal agency that two years is an unacceptable amount of time to wait for an emergency repair.

“Hits and misses” appears each Saturday. Items are compiled by the editorial board.